About Scott K. Andrews

I am Scott Keegan Andrews, this is my website. I write books, plays, articles and reviews. I am represented by Oliver Munson at A. M. Heath.

I began writing professionally in my 30th year. I am writing this in my 40th year. I work on the perhaps optimistic principle that I will die or lose interest in working somewhere around my 80th year. This means I am about 10 years into a 50-year career. I reckon I'm doing okay so far, given that I'm not even a quarter done yet.

At any rate, this is what I mutter to myself whenever I consider how young Buddy Holly, Mozart and James Dean were when they died.

There is a wikipedia page about me. It has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate. If you wish to amend it, feel free. I never edit it myself, feeling that somehow it would be egotistical to do so. Instead I have devoted an entire website to myself. This is not egotistical at all. Really.

I have a Facebook account, but please don't be offended if I refuse your friend request. I like to keep my Facebook account for family and close friends. I resisted setting up a fan page on Facebook for a long time, feeling that somehow it would be egotistical to do so, but eventually I caved - My Facebook Page.

I have a private life, which I like to keep private, however when politely pressed I will admit to being a husband and a father to two offspring. When impolitely pressed I will whip out photos of my wife and kids and bore you for hours about how awesome they are.

I will write for money. I will also write for free, but only if you make a donation to the bank account of my choice (hint: mine). Call me crazy, but I prefer to feed my kids with food I have paid for with money I have earned, rather than with the air generated by repeated use of the phrase 'but it'll be great publicity!'.

I am unfailingly kind and patient to small children and animals. I make no promises in respect of my conduct towards adults and monsters.

I very occasionally blog about my day job. Sorry. When I do this, please bear in mind that none of the views published here necessarily reflect the views of my employers, publishers, family, friends, pets, children et al. I mean, they might do, I haven't asked them, but best take it as read that they disagree violently and think me, frankly, a bit of an embarrassment. It'll be safer for everyone that way.

Cornwall, England, 2014 Kazik Cecka was cold, wet, tired and hungry when he finally decided to stop running and find somewhere to rest. The cloudless night was full-moon bright, the raindrops picked out in flashes of silver, and the air was fresh with the first chill of autumn. Kaz pulled his tattered jacket tight and considered his options. He was miles from the nearest town, in open countryside. He could see a copse of trees on the other side of the field, a dark interruption in a horizon which stretched away as far as the eye could see; undulations of ploughed fields and pasture. He had hoped that by now he would see the welcoming orange glow of a small town or village, but there was nothing; if there was a town nearby, the clear skies and full moon were swamping its light pollution and keeping its location a secret. Sighing, he decided that the copse offered his best chance of shelter. He trudged across the field, avoiding the sleeping cows. At least he was wearing the new Gore-Tex boots his father had bought for him before their fight, so his feet were warm and dry. Unlike the rest of him. This was not the adventure he had been hoping for when he’d run away from home. Not for the first time he replayed the afternoon’s events in his head, questioning his actions, wishing that just this once he’d managed to keep his cool and not shoot his mouth off. But even as he chided himself for his temper he found his pulse quickening and the sense of injustice...

Cornwall, England, 1640 Theodora Predennick failed to stifle a yawn. She wasn’t accustomed to rising so early. Being dressed and busy in the pre-dawn gloom felt unnatural. All her life, summer and winter, she had been woken by the first rays of the rising sun, and had retired to bed as the skies above her village turned black. Her grandmother had warned her about the things that walked abroad after dark: goblins, werewolves, fair folk, and girls with wickedness in their hearts. Good girls were safely tucked up behind stout wooden doors come sunset. Dora had always been a good girl. Her new dress pinched at her ribs. She adjusted the wretched thing to try and reduce the chafing as she worked the lump of dough on the table before her, kneading and pounding the mixture into submission. The logs on the huge kitchen hearthstones crackled and spat as the damp bark was scorched away. The newly dried wood began to catch alight, billowing fresh smoke up the chimney and casting a warm glow that lightened the gloom. When Dora was satisfied that the dough was ready she set it by the fireplace in a cloth-lined wicker basket so it could rise in the spreading warmth. It was time to light the fire beneath the baking oven. She had just lifted the iron tongs, intending to prise a log from the main fire and use it to spark the smaller one, when she paused. Had she heard something? No. Not at this hour. The master was still abed and cook wasn’t likely to rise for some time. She’d only...

Now reduced to 99p / $1.38 on Kindle Buy at Amazon.com Buy at Amazon.co.uk New York, America East, 2141 It was only when she reached the top of the staircase and burst through the door on to the deserted roof that Jana decided to die. She’d died once before and it wasn’t so bad, but she’d hoped to avoid doing it again for a while. She scanned left and right, searching for some sliver of hope; a skylight, a fire escape, some form of cover, a discarded crowbar to use as a weapon. There was nothing. All she could see were the flat, featureless slabs of reconstituted rubber that formed the skyscraper’s top seal. At the far edge of the roof was a small concrete lip beyond which rose the skyline of New York, shimmering in the heat. The skyscraper was an old twentieth-century construction, forty storeys high. Once it had dominated the skyline, but now it was dwarfed by the looming organic skytowns that twined sinuously up into the cloud base. Even so, it was quiet on the roof. The noises of the city didn’t reach up here. Jana knew the membrane windows of the skytowns masked hives of furious activity, but here it felt tranquil and deserted. She was easily visible from a thousand offices. Should anyone glance down at the city for a second, they would be able to see Jana, hands on knees, gasping for breath, sweat-drenched, scared and alone in the middle of a flat, black roof. Would anyone spare her a second glance? She was standing at the heart of one of the...

TimeBomb publishes 9 October 2014. Pre-order – paperback | ebook New York City, 2141: Yojana Patel throws herself off a skyscraper, but never hits the ground. Cornwall, 1640: gentle young Dora Predennick, newly come to Sweetclover Hall to work, discovers a badly-burnt woman at the bottom of a flight of stairs. When she reaches out to comfort the dying woman, she’s flung through time. On a rainy night in present-day Cornwall, seventeen-year-old Kaz Cecka sneaks into the long-abandoned Sweetclover Hall, in search of a dry place to sleep. Instead he finds a frightened housemaid who believes Charles I is king and an angry girl who claims to come from the future. Thrust into the centre of a war that spans millennia, Dora, Kaz and Jana must learn to harness powers they barely understand to escape not only villainous Lord Sweetclover but the forces of a fanatical army… all the while staying one step ahead of a mysterious woman known only as...

So the secret’s finally out. If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook you’ll know I recently finished and delivered a book. You’ll possibly have realised it’s a time-travel story, and if you’ve really been paying attention you’ll have guessed it’s called Timebomb. It’s the first of a three-book deal I signed with Hodder & Stoughton. In March! I’ve been keeping this secret for MONTHS! It’s been driving me nuts! It’s a good job I’m teetotal these days, otherwise I would certainly have gone out for a quiet drink one Friday and ended up telling THE ENTIRE WORLD! Yes, this is a four-exclamation-mark kind of day. So how did it happen? At the end of last year I worked three books into pitches – that is the first ten thousand words and a synopsis. One was an alternate history war-story for adults, one was a fantasy mash-up which would probably have ended up YA, and the third was a YA time-travel romp called Timebomb. I decided I was going to spend the year writing one of them, and picked the war story. I was chugging along nicely when Anne Perry dropped me an email. I’ve known Anne for a while. She and her husband run the Pornokitsch website. I call them the ‘The Pornos’. This does not amuse them nearly as much as it amuses me. They were generous enough to shortlist my last book, Children’s Crusade for the 2010 Kitschies. The winner was Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. I’m not bitter (but what on earth happened to her, eh?) The Pornos also co-edit amazing short story collections...